WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Middlesex (except that portion included in the London Military District).
2nd. In the Northern Command, the counties of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and Yorkshire, with the southern shore of the estuary of the Humber.
(2) I, Charles Leonard Spencer Cotterell, his Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for War, am charged with the execution of this Decree.
War Office, Whitehall, September the Fourth, 1910.
This proclamation was posted outside the War Office in London at noon on Wednesday, and was read by thousands. It was also posted upon the Town Hall of every city and town throughout the country.
“About two in the morning the moon rose. Her light was but fitful and partial on account of a very cloudy sky, but I received rather a shock when her first rays revealed a long grey line of warships with all lights out, and with the darker forms of their attendant destroyers moving on their flanks, slowly crossing our course at right angles. As it turned out, they were only our own escorts, ordered to meet us at this point, and to convoy us and the other portions of the XIIth Corps, which were coming out from Rotterdam and other Dutch ports to join us. In a few minutes after meeting the ironclads, a galaxy of sparkling points of light approaching from the northward heralded their arrival, and by three o’clock the whole fleet was steaming due west in many parallel lines. Four battleships moved in line ahead on each flank, the destroyers seemed to be constantly coming and going in all directions, like dogs shepherding a flock of sheep, and I fancy there were several other men-o’-war ahead of us. The crossing proved entirely uneventful. We saw nothing of the much-to-be-dreaded British warships, nor indeed of any ships at all, with the exception of a few fishing-boats and the Harwich-Antwerp boat, which, ablaze with lights, ran through the rear portion of our flotilla, luckily without colliding with any of our flats or lighters. What her crew and passengers must have thought of meeting such an array of shipping in mid-Channel can only be surmised. In any case, it was of no consequence, for by the time they arrived in Antwerp all our cards would be on the table.
“Towards morning I got very drowsy, and eventually fell asleep on a bench behind the after deck-house. I seemed hardly to have closed my eyes when Von der Bendt woke me up to inform me that land was in sight. It was just dawn. A wan light was creeping up out of the east, bringing with it a cold air that made one shiver. There was but little light in the west, but there right ahead a long black line was just discernible on the horizon. It was England!
“Our half of the fleet now altered course a few points to the southward, the remainder taking a more northerly course, and by five o’clock we were passing the Swin Lightship, and stood in the mouth of the river Crouch, doubtless to the amazement of a few fishermen who gazed open-mouthed from their boats at the apparition of our grey warships, with their bristle of guns and the vast concourse of shipping that followed them. By six we were at Burnham-on-Crouch, a quaint little town, evidently a yachting centre, for the river was absolutely covered with craft — small cutters, yawls, and the like, and hundreds upon hundreds of boats of all sizes. Many large, flat-bottomed barges, with tanned sails, lay alongside the almost continuous wooden quay that bordered the river. The boats of the squadron carrying a number of sailors and detachments from the 2nd Marine Battalion that formed part of the expedition had evidently preceded us, as the German ensign was hoisted over the coastguard station, which was occupied by our men. Several of our steam pinnaces were busily engaged in collecting the boats and small craft that were scattered all over the estuary, while others were hauling and towing some of the barges into position beside the quays to serve as landing-places. The method employed was to lash one outside the other till the uttermost one was outside the position of low-water mark. Our lighter craft, at any rate, could then go alongside and disembark their men and stores at any time.
“The first men I saw land were the residue of the Marine Battalion, who were in the next transport to us. As soon as they were ashore, Prince Henry and his staff followed. We landed at a little iron pier, the planking of which was so rotten that it had given way in many places, and as the remainder of the flooring threatened to follow suit if one placed one’s weight on it, we all marched gingerly along the edge, clutching tight hold of the railings. The carpenter’s crew from one of the warships was, however, already at work on its repair. As we landed, I saw the Odin, followed by a steamer, towing several flats containing the 1st Battalion of the 177th Infantry, and a battery of artillery landing farther up the river. She did not go far, but anchored stem and stern. The steamer cast off her lighters close to the southern bank, and they ran themselves ashore, some on the river bank, and others in a little creek that here ran into the main stream. This detachment, I was informed, was to entrench itself in the little village of Canewdon, supposed to have been the site of Canute’s camp, and situated on an eminence about three miles west of us, and about a mile south of the river. As it is the only high ground on that side the river within a radius of several miles of Burnham, its importance to us will be evident.
“While we were waiting for our horses to be landed, I took a turn through the village. It consists of one street, fairly wide in the central portion, with a curious red tower on arches belonging to the local Rath-haus on one side of it. At the western exit of the town is a red-brick drill hall for the Volunteers. Our Marines were in possession, and I noticed several of them studying with much amusement a gaudily-coloured recruiting poster on the post-office opposite, headed: ‘Wanted, recruits for His Majesty’s Army.’ One of their number, who apparently understood English, was translating the letterpress, setting forth the joys and emoluments which awaited the difficult-to-find Englishman patriotic enough to become a soldier. As if such a system of raising an army could ever produce an efficient machine! Was it not the famous Admiral Coligny who perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew who said, ‘Rather than lead again an army of voluntaries, I would die a thousand times.’
“By this time our horses, and those of a couple of troops of the Jäegers zu Pferde had been put on shore. Then having seen that all the exits of the village were occupied, the Mayor secured, and the usual notices posted threatening death to any civilian who obstructed our operations, directly or indirectly, we started off for the high ground to the northward, where we hoped to get into touch with the Division which should now be landing at Bradwell, on the Blackwater. With us went as escort a troop of the Jäegers in their soft grey-green uniforms — for the descent being a surprise one we were in our ordinary uniforms — and a number of mounted signallers.
“The villagers were beginning to congregate as we left Burnham. They scowled at us, but said nothing. For the most part they appeared to be completely dumbfounded. Such an event as a real invasion by a real army of foreigners had never found any place in their limited outlook on life and the world in general. There were some good-looking girls here and there, with fresh, apple-red cheeks, who did not look altogether askance at our prancing horses and our gay uniforms. It was now about half-past eight, and the morning mists, which had been somewhat prevalent down by the river and the low-lying land on either bank, had thinned and drifted away under the watery beams of a feeble sun that hardly pierced the cloudy canopy above us. This, I suppose, is the English summer day of which we hear so much! It is not hot, certainly. The horses were fresh, delighted to escape from their cramped quarters on shipboard, and, trotting and cantering through the many turns of the muddy lanes, we soon skirted the village of Southminster, and began to mount the high ground between it and a little place called Steeple.
“Here, just north of a steading known as Batt’s Farm, is the highest point on the peninsula formed by the Blackwater and Crouch Rivers. Though it is only 132 ft. above sea-level, the surrounding ground is so flat that a perfect panorama was spread before us. We could not distinguish Burnham, which was six miles or more to the southward, and hidden by slight folds of the ground and the many trees which topped the hedgerows, but the Blackwater and its creeks were in full view, and about seven miles to the north-west the towers and spires of Maldon, our principal objective in the first instance, stood up like grey pencillings on the sky-line. Our signallers soon got to work, and in a very few minutes picked up those of the Northern Division, who had established a station on a church tower about two miles to our north-east, at St. Lawrence. They reported a successful landing at Bradwell, and that the Ægir had gone up in the direction of Maldon with the 3rd Marine Battalion, who were being towed up